Christopher Guest
What's interesting about Laurel and Hardy is that in most comedy teams, there's a straight man, and then there's the funny guy. And with Laurel and Hardy, they're both the funny guy.Collection: Funny
What interests me most are the emotional lives of the people. If I don't have that, it's not worth doing, frankly.
I haven't had to do anything outside of show business my whole life. I've never been a waiter. I've only worked and gotten paid. It hasn't been a classic example of someone slogging through the business.
I started working in New York City as an actor and did many plays. I did regional theater, smaller theaters, children's theater.
I didn't go to film school. I had been an actor in movies, I had been in plays, and then I just sort of jumped into it.
If you're showing people where it's smooth sailing, where is the joke? If you go back to any movie, even a conventional movie, with any comedians, they're either not terribly intelligent or they're not doing something well.
I love documentaries. My problem is when the filmmaker becomes the star.
I've never seen a reality show. I don't watch television.
The fun part about doing our movies is that you're creating something using the talents of people rather than finding these pathetic people who are thrust into these situations. That, to me, is completely artless.
I find it really appalling when people talk about comedy.
It's difficult to articulate how I know it's the right actor, but I do. It's instinct. Intuition.
My daughter recommended Chris O'Dowd to me after seeing him in 'Bridesmaids,' so I watched that and his sitcom, 'The IT Crowd.' When I was over in London, we met up, and I knew immediately he was the right person.
Strangely enough, among my dad's things, I found the diary of an ancestor who was born in 1797 and became a ventriloquist in London. That was quite chilling. It described exactly how I was as a child but 150 years earlier - doing voices, pretending to be a ventriloquist.
'The Office' is an amazing show. So is 'Extras.'
I would make a huge distinction between theater improvisation and film improvisation.
There isn't much improvisation in film - there's virtually none. The people that theoretically could be good at this in a theater situation don't necessarily do this in a film in a way that will work, because it's much broader on a stage.
The truth of it is that people are not going to want to go to improvisational theater if it's not funny. You can succeed in doing all the things you're supposed to do - be truthful to scene - and if it's not funny, I'm telling you that no one's gonna care.
In the kind of films that I do, there is an extremely limited number of people that can improvise. The reason the ensemble continues in the movies is because those are the people that can do that kind of work. It's not just an accident those people are in the film.
Mean doesn't last. Mean is over fast. Maybe this is the essence of everything, which is, to me, if there is no emotional center for what I'm doing, I have no interest in it at all.
To me, what I realized when we were doing 'Spinal Tap' - and the four of us wrote that - is, really, the core of that is the relationship with the two guys who grew up together and that strain when the girlfriend comes in. If that wasn't there, it's a very different movie. Then it's just bumbling guys stumbling along.
In 'Waiting for Guffman,' the character I played, the Corky character, he's very serious about what he does, and it's not meant to be mean that this is a small town and these people aren't the most talented people. They're trying the best they can. So to be mean, that would be kind of horrifying in its superficiality.
I'm drawn as well to the lower echelons of things because it struck me a long time ago that it didn't really matter on what level people were working on anything; it was just as important to them as the people working on what's perceived as a higher level.
I think fans are so brought up in a culture of rooting for a team since they were kids, ostensibly, and are blind to this idea that people might take offense.
I don't do any editing while we're making the movie. I sit down and watch it all with my editor, we make longhand notes on pads, and then we begin our work.
The main thing that's important to me is getting to do whatever project it is the way that I do what I do, and that's different. To go to an entity - whether it's a traditional film studio or some newer company, or HBO, Amazon or Netflix - they would have to know that I need to work the way I work.
I knew Dave Raymond, who was the original Phillie Phanatic.
I'm a fly fisherman. I make flies. They're imitations of insects at different stages in their development.
I guess there's something that's appealing to me about people that are aspirational-slash-deluded.
I talk to people of different ages, and a guy who's 38 who says, 'I could've played Major League Baseball, but I had this knee injury...' Yeah, probably not. It's a big thing with men and sports, where they think they could have touched that thing.
When my daughter played volleyball in school, they were the Wildcats. Well, there are about a million Wildcats. Why don't you come up with another name?
I don't know anyone who's ever taken a bus. It's a mysterious form of transportation.
As an actor, I trust my ear.
If you didn't know who I was, if I was to walk out on the street without people knowing who I am, you'd think I'm an accountant or a lawyer.
I don't read about myself, and I don't read any magazine that has anything to do with movies or show business.
Some instinct has told me I need to live in a world that isn't consumed with reading about myself or anyone else or someone's opinion about something. I need to be clear of that. It's just healthier for me. I feel happier.
The most important thing about my life is this integrity, and you can't lie to yourself.
'Waiting For Guffman' was different right away from 'Spinal Tap,' because we didn't show the interviewer. That person became invisible immediately. That created a different way of tuning it and ultimately editing it.
With a documentary, you can cut away, you can do jump cuts, cut to a photograph at any point to bridge two scenes.
I don't make movies that make fun of anything.
What I'm doing in the work I do, I prefer not to just have a series of jokes. It's nice when audiences can connect with the characters as well.
There are dozens and dozens of improv classes across the nation, but it really cannot be taught.
'This is Spinal Tap' was a film we felt really had to be done like that. It wouldn't have worked any other way. And it turned out to be the first time a fiction film had really been made in a documentary format. I continued to do that, obviously, because it's a fun way to work.
We heard about people who went backstage at dog shows with scissors and cut parts of a poodle's hair off to sabotage the dog.
There's something about that idea of looking up and hoping, and thinking, 'I'm good.' Some things, like show business, are absolutely subjective. People look at a TV show and think, 'I could do that.' And maybe they could do that. But they're not.
You know when you're young, you have this unbelievable stupidity and arrogance and ignorance all mixed in?
It's infrequent that that happens - great performances and magical cinematography and great direction.
I myself delve into very arcane things.
I wouldn't say I'm a connoisseur of film. I like certain films, but I don't pretend to be a connoisseur of films, no.
I am interested in the notion that people can become so obsessed by their world that they lose sense and awareness of how they appear to other people. They're so earnest about it. But that's true of so many things.
It's dangerous talking about comedy; it gets to be very tedious and presumptuous.